


Some Nights

by allofthismatters



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: (at least I think so Sara's post-Gambit-sinking past confuses me), Angst, Canon Compliant, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, mentions of torture, soft and protective ava
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthismatters/pseuds/allofthismatters
Summary: Sara's having a bad, guilt-ridden night and feeling very down on herself, and just needs Ava to remind her who she is.(Just needed to get some angst out of my head, sorry for being mean to poor Sara.)





	Some Nights

Ava is lying on their bed when Sara snaps at her. She’d asked a simple question and gotten biting sarcasm as an answer, and Ava has to snuff out the sharp pang of annoyance before she snaps back. It's late and it's not worth it. She feels the bed resist her expanding chest as she sighs heavily instead.

“Sara, please just talk to me instead of being an ass.”

Ava’s tone isn’t even all that confrontational. She knows when Sara’s trying to pick a fight to avoid her own feelings, and it’s such a rarity these days that it doesn’t anger her so much as just surprise her. She’d seemed fine earlier in the day. 

Sara looks at her sideways, scowling but not provoked. They’re long past that now.

She joins her in bed and lays on her back with eyes closed, smacking blindly at the sheets with one hand to find Ava’s body. It’s a familiar routine now, and more than once it’s led to Ava swatting back at her until one of them has the other wrestled down into the mattress and they’re laughing against each others’ lips through soft kisses. Sometimes they get to that delicious point of hysteria where they’re so weak with laughter for no reason whatsoever that they simply collapse in a heap until their sides hurt. Other times their laughter fades and their kisses continue until they’re frantically searching for bare skin, breathing unsteadily in each other’s arms, hands and mouths going where they’re needed, whispered encouragements and raw sounds of pleasure passing between them until they’re quiet and damp with sweat. 

But tonight there’s no humor anywhere. Ava turns onto her side and seizes the blindly searching hand, squeezing until Sara squeezes back. 

“Hi. Sorry.” Sara’s voice is hollow and somewhere else.

“Hi. Tell me what’s wrong.”

She watches Sara’s face, but her eyes stay closed, and Ava isn’t sure if she imagined the drop of moisture trailing down her cheek. Her thumb strokes along Sara’s freckled wrist patiently, rubbing small soothing circles over the familiar cluster of scars on the back of her hand. She focuses on the thin, uneven ridges in the silence. When Sara finally speaks, her voice is defeated. Not upset, not irritated…just tired. Down to her bones, tired. 

“It…might be a rough night for me.” 

She says it almost like a question, as if she’s asking Ava for confirmation or permission. She only ever hears Sara that unsure when it’s just the two of them, and the intimacy of that gives Ava a fierce, protective sort of strength that she knows wasn’t programmed into her. Before Sara, she'd never felt someone else’s pain so acutely. Every time Sara is suffering, she feels it flare like a fist squeezing in her chest, unreasonable and white-hot. _Did someone hurt you? I’ll kill them right now. _

Ava pushes it down and just nods calmly, laying on her side and studying Sara’s face. She breathes in for a moment, ready to ask why and what she can do to help, and then does neither. Instead she touches her knuckles to Sara’s cheek and simply says, “Ok.”

Sara’s breath shudders and she finally opens her eyes with a doubtful look. 

_Really? You’re really ok with another round of me being like this?_ Sara doesn’t have to say the words for Ava to hear them.

“Hey. Look at me. I’m here no matter what kind of night it is.”

Sara’s chest rises and falls unevenly for a moment before her face betrays her and contorts, an inch away from crying if she’d just let herself. It’s only for a second, but Ava crumbles and reaches across the bed, her thumbs already swiping across Sara’s cheeks by the time her tears finally fall.

Her hand moves down and rests on Sara’s chest, and Sara covers Ava’s with her own. 

“Come here. I have you. I’ve got you.” 

She wraps Sara up and Sara buries into her hungrily, tightening her grip on Ava until Ava holds her just as tight. She rubs up and down her back firmly, pressing kisses against her hairline whenever a ragged sob escapes her. 

“Love you so much”, she breathes near Sara’s ear, and that’s when Sara goes to cover her face and pull out of Ava’s grip. 

She moves to sit on the side of the bed, away from her girlfriend, face in her hands, feet planted on the floor, and they’re silent for several long moments. 

“Sara.”

No answer. A faint twinge of panic roots in her gut.

“_Sara._ Give me something to work with, baby.”

Wordlessly, she pulls a scrap of paper out of her pocket and hands it to Ava, looking at the ceiling miserably. Ava reads it over quickly, confused—something about a girl, valedictorian of her class, headed to Yale, inspired by her late father to pursue mathematics—

She doesn’t see what the connection is and searches her memory. Did Laurel go to Yale maybe? No…She reads on…orphaned under mysterious circumstances, raised near the mountains of Pakistan—

_Oh. _Oh. Something about the League.   
Sara interrupts her thoughts.

“Her dad worked at this post right off Lian Yu and he found me and thought I was a spy or something. I don’t know, I didn’t speak the language at that point. Spent a week keeping me awake, throwing cold water in my face, burning my back with this metal rod, asking…I don’t know what. Right before the League found me. I was starving, and the burns got infected, I didn’t know what else to do besides deal with it, wait to die, you know? Two years later, they sent me to kill him for some other reason. I didn’t realize it was him until I got there. I knew he had a kid, there were pictures in his living room right before I—”

She looks away, breathing heavily to keep her voice from breaking. 

“I didn’t enjoy it, Ava, I didn’t, but part of me—thought he got what he deserved, but then I saw this today and his daughter—”

She stops as sobs choke off her voice. Ava tentatively rests a hand on her thigh, because it’s too damn hard not to touch her when she’s this upset.

“She never knew what kind of person he was, and she loved him so much and I took it from her. I hate the people that took Laurel and my dad from me, and as far she knows, I’m no better than either of them. And then tonight I came here and you’d…left me a fucking plate of dinner in the fridge in case I was hungry and you wanted to hear about my day, like I didn’t kill that little girl’s dad, like I’m not a monster just trying to play house—"

“Sara—"  
“Sometimes I still don’t understand why you want me. I’m sorry, I thought I was past feeling like this, but I don’t get it.”

Ava hardens her voice and Sara’s name comes out harsher than she meant, but it gets her attention. She repeats herself again, softer this time, but her eyes dig into Sara’s with intensity and plead for her to understand.

“_Sara._ Sara. Listen to me right now, look at me.” She reaches out to hold Sara’s face between her hands. “Tell me what else you were supposed to have done. Not gotten picked up by the League when you were almost dead? Refused to do what the League asked and gotten killed for that?”

“I know.”

“Listen. You were in a terrible place and maybe that meant doing terrible things. You didn’t do any of that because you’re a monster, though, my love, ok? That’s not who you are.”

Sara nods. Some days, knowing it doesn’t mean believing it.

“You know what, though? I’ll never, ever not want every bit of you. I could never resent a single thing you ever had to do to survive long enough to get to me. To now. Alright?”

Sara closes her eyes again but Ava feels better now that her breathing has settled down.

“You want to know why I want you? You’re one of the best people I know…you’re smart. You’re a great leader, you’ve made me laugh almost every day I’ve known you. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

She lets her words linger for a few quiet moments before she leans down to kiss Sara’s forehead.

“And when you’re not being a pain in my ass, you’re pretty cute.” She feels Sara smile against her neck even as the rest of her feels limp with defeat. “Plus you saved my life...Nice butt, too"--Sara exhales sharply, the closest she's going to get to a laugh right now--"Okay-looking face. Not horrible in—”

Sara’s elbow jabs into her side and knocks the words out of her. Ava laughs softly and relaxes. 

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

She spends a few minutes in the kitchen, trying to loosen the knot in her chest left by Sara's words. She returns with a mug of tea. Sara takes it gratefully and sips while Ava sits behind her and pulls her hair tie free. Sara shudders as familiar long fingers unweave her braid piece by piece, nails scraping against her scalp until her eyes are drooping.   
She puts her cup down and settles herself over Ava’s long body, their legs tangled and stomachs pressed together as they breathe each other in. 

“Promise you’ll wake me up if you need me.”

Sara mumbles a yes, and Ava lays there until she feels the body on top of her get heavy with sleep. She carefully moves her to her side but stays close and watches the fresh, hard-earned peace on her face. Another storm weathered together, then. 

They’re getting good at this.


End file.
